


Wither Thou Goest

by Sioux



Category: Arthur of the Britons
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:01:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25555498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sioux/pseuds/Sioux
Relationships: Arthur/Kai
Kudos: 2





	Wither Thou Goest

Wither Thou Goest

Grateful thanks to freddyjoey for letting me borrow ‘the children’ and putting them to work!

I can hear the voices well before I see the three figures emerging out of the freezing mist.  
Kai’s eldest daughter walks alongside a man who is leaning on a stout stick, his head down and struggling but still disdaining both her assistance and that of my youngest daughter, whose hand is hovering around his elbow on the other side but not actually touching him.  
My Kai broke his leg two winters passed, ever since he has needed that stick. Maeve, now our senior healer, started out insisting that he must exercise the leg by walking. Now, more often than not, she insists that he must take some rest before he injures it again.   
Maeve and Rosie swap a look between them, frustration and, on Rosie’s side, irritation.   
I wait in the shadows. I have seen this particular play enacted every sevenday for the last five moons. It never fails to amuse me. Whatever they say, Kai will do just as he pleases and when it pleases him.  
‘Father, it’s cold. It’s going to be frosty later, can’t you do this in the warmth of home?’ Rosie pleads. ‘I’m sure Uncle Arthur would be happier in the warm too,’ she adds, as if by invoking the magic of my name it will somehow make her father agree.  
Kai doesn’t answer. I notice he’s more out of breath than usual then he coughs, a deep, congested cough, which shakes his frame and sounds much worse than it did the last sevenday.  
I can feel my face settling into a frown. If that cough has turned into one of the winter sicknesses he should not be making this trip to converse with me. For a moment I consider revealing my presence then stop.   
When his gift made itself known he has always said that he needs this one night and day away from the village. If this is the way Kai wants things to be then this is the way it shall be. The village is more of a town now than the village it was in our own youth. And, as a town, there are many, many more people who want the services of a seer. Especially a seer like my Kai.  
I shift quietly deeper into the shadow of the mighty oak on my right. I can still clearly see the trio and I have no difficulty hearing them.  
‘Maeve!’ Rosie whispers harshly.  
Maeve sighs.  
‘Uncle Kai, I would be happier if you would come home with us. Shannyn has been teaching Affi to make your favourite hare pie.’  
I put my hand over my mouth to stifle the giggle which threatens. Afri, to give her her proper name, is my lovely, lovely grand-daughter. She is also as good a cook as her grandmother was. Her talent for training horses and riding is legendary but, like a copy of my fair Rowena, her culinary skills leave much to be desired.  
Kai swallows hard. I know he is swallowing his own laughter.   
Finally he raises his head, still breathing hard. Lovingly he strokes Maeve’s cheek and shakes his head.   
‘Ask her to save me a portion, my sweet girl,’ he says, his eyes suspiciously bright with merriment. ‘I shall have it to break my fast.’  
Annoyed, Rosie drops the large bag she has carried for her father and stands in front of him with her hands on her hips.   
It could be Lenni standing in front him.  
‘How about if we just ignore what you want and drag you back to the village?’ she threatens. ‘Maeve is our senior healer and she’s not happy you are going to spend the night out here and I’m certainly not happy about it. Neither are Theo, Cedric, Shannyn, Ren or Luc.’  
Kai nods. Both hands settle on the handle of his stick as he faces his daughter.  
‘Kaitlin, Ivy and Baden weren’t included in this family discussion?’ he enquires gently, holding out his hand to Maeve to relieve her of the large, thick rug she has carried. She places it around his shoulders. It immediately falls around him down to his ankles like a huge, thick bear pelt.  
Rosie puts her head down, her lips pursed. When she looks up again, Kai raises an eyebrow.  
‘They told me to let you do as you want. You’re an elder and our seer and have earned the right,’ she finally admits.  
If the light were better I am sure I would be able to see her blushing cheeks from where I am standing.  
My Kai merely nods sagely.  
‘But you chose not to.’  
‘I’m worried about you!’ she practically screams at him.  
‘Oh daughter!’ He takes her in his arms and holds her tight. ‘Don’t worry about me. Keep your worry for your children and your grandchildren.’  
‘I haven’t got grandchildren,’ she sniffs pathetically then looks into her father’s eyes, her own open comically wide.  
‘Oh! Did I speak out of turn? Forgive an old man his absent mindedness,’ he smiles, mischievously.  
She shoots her father a look of exasperation and spares another for her best friend and cousin, Maeve, who is keeping her gaze directed anywhere but at her.  
‘Well, as it is cold this night, I would appreciate it if you two fine ladies would help me collect some firewood to see me through the night. I shall be over there.’  
He points with his stick towards our special place.   
I smile.  
He takes a torch from the bag Rosie has carried, lights it from the torch Rosie holds and sets off across the forest clearing, taking the bag with him and not waiting for either Maeve or Rosie.  
He enters our hidden hut, puts the bag on the table and sets about lighting the candles and getting a fire going in the centre of the room.  
Slowly he divests himself of his thick covering onto the large bed frame, which does take up a good portion of the area. He lowers himself onto one of the two chairs, each side of the rough table.  
‘Have you been here long?’ he asks quietly.  
I shake my head and grin.  
‘Long enough to hear your daughter treating you like a nestling.’  
His smile fills the room with merriment.  
‘Somehow I thought you would have heard that.’  
‘You need water,’ I tell him, leaning against the wall and nodding at the empty bucket.  
He grunts and gets to his feet collecting the bucket and a kiss on his way outside to the stream. I follow.   
I can see the torch bobbing through the leafless trees as I guide Kai towards the stream in the darkness. My eyes were always better at night than his, more so now.  
By the time he has filled the bucket, Maeve and Rosie have an armful of fallen branches each and are looking around for Kai.  
‘Father!’ Rosie’s voice, suddenly sounding like a little girl, again. The thickening mist swallows up the sound and carries it away as it snakes along the forest floor, rising almost to knee height now.  
I take him to within touching distance of the hut wall and squeeze his arm.  
‘Here!’ he answers, using the turfed wall as a guide.   
The torch turns in his direction, momentarily blinding him, giving the two woman chance to reach his side.  
I can see Maeve and Rosie’s faces, both looking askance at the earthen bank. It looks dark, dank and very uninviting. Almost instantly I can see Rosie’s will hardening; she is not going to let her father stay in this spot for this night, and not for any night afterwards.  
Kai’s irrepressible dimples peek out of his bearded cheeks as he lifts the curtain of ivy out of the way, careful not to break any of the stems, and pushes through the wooden, well fitting door behind, letting light from the candles and the fire inside spill across the forest floor.  
Their twin expressions are priceless!  
I pick up many questions being thrown at Kai’s head as both of them exclaim over the hidden hut.  
Looking like the cat who caught the eagle, Kai shuts the door firmly behind them, fills a large pot with water and sets it to heat near the fire, motioning the woman to the chairs whilst he sits on the bed.  
He holds up his hand to stem the flow of chatter.  
‘You both were very young when we started to rebuild the village in stone. Do you remember the wattle and daub huts?’  
Maeve frowns, Rosie looks blank.  
‘I think I do,’ Maeve replies, haltingly. ‘We wove them?’  
Kai coughs and nods.  
‘And then covered them with layers and layers of mud, mixed with horse hair and hay. Roofed with thatch.’  
‘Like Aunt Rowena’s village?’ Rosie asks.  
‘Exactly. And so vulnerable to fire. The Saxons and any other invaders could burn us out of our homes with just a few well placed arrows and our people would be homeless, if not totally helpless. So we rebuilt in stone. The other chieftains thought we were mad until they realised how well protected even the lowliest of our people were when surrounded by stone, not willow, hazel and daub.’  
He pauses again, a cough taking him by surprise. He holds his hand to his side and his forearm over his mouth.   
I glance at Maeve as Kai’s face develops an alarming grey tinge. Now I look at him properly I am sure he has lost weight since the last time we met. A lot of weight over a small number of days.  
My Maeve bounds forwards, digging in the bag and withdrawing a stoppered pot. She opens the pot and takes Kai’s arm from his mouth, instead helping him to sip at the liquid in the pot. He pushes her hand away after a mouthful.  
‘It makes me sleepy,’ he complains.  
‘It also soothes the cough,’ Maeve replies, ensuring he takes another sip.  
‘I’ll take more, later,’ he promises, pushing the stopper back into the pot. He takes several shallow breaths until he can speak again and continues. ‘We brought stone here, built into the bank then covered it over in turf and trained ivy to grow over the door.’  
‘But...’  
‘Only Arthur and me know about this place.’   
We took care that no-one else knew about it, I finish the sentence for him in my mind. It was where we came to reconnect with each other. Where we came to relax, to love, to grieve, to just be us. Not chieftain and second, not the Celt and the Saxon who rides with Arthur, just Llud’s sons; Arthur and Kai.  
‘So all the time when I thought you were spending every sevennight on the hill, in the cold, you were in here?’ Rosie demands.  
Kai nodded. ‘Now will you stop worrying?’  
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she yells, slamming her hand on the table for emphasis.  
He laughs at her display of temper.   
‘I just did!’  
He ducks instinctively when Rosie picks up the nearest thing to her hand to throw at her father.   
That takes me back. I do wonder how the talent for throwing pots managed to shift from my children to Kai’s, though.  
Maeve wrestles the drinking cup out of her cousin’s hand and replaces it firmly back on the table.  
‘I think that is our signal to leave!’ she says firmly.  
Rosie dissolves into unladylike giggles as she throws herself on the floor at her father’s feet.  
‘I do love you, you infuriating man!’  
‘And I love you too. Be safe and keep your cousins and brothers and sister safe.’  
Rosie nods, hugs her father hard and gets to her feet.  
‘Tell Uncle Arthur we love him too.’  
‘He already knows,’ Kai reassures her.  
She readily gives up her place to my Maeve who lingers in my Kai’s arms. At one point her eyes fall to the bag at his feet then back to his face.  
He smiles his special smile at her and almost imperceptibly shakes his head. She puts her head on his shoulder and swallows several times, holding him tight. He gently rubs her back until she pulls away. Then he quickly wipes away her tears before Rosie catches sight of them.  
I see him mouth, ‘Thank you,’ followed by, ‘I love you.’  
She nods and gets to her feet.  
‘Come on Rosie, let’s leave him to it,’ she says, sounding cheerful, relighting the torch and putting her arm through her cousin’s arm.  
There are almost through the door when Rosie turns back and hugs her father hard enough for his ribs to squeak and him to huff out a breath.  
‘When did you get so strong?’ he asks in genuine surprise, getting his breath back and feeling her upper arms.  
‘Same time you got so pig-headed,’ she replies, smartly.  
I see her mouth move then Kai’s eyes become very bright and shiny, showing up the milky outline to his dark iris and cornea even more so.  
He hugs her back then releases her.  
‘Look after each other...’  
‘And our cousins and brothers and sister,’ the two women chant together.  
Kai mock frowns.  
‘Have I said that before?’ he asks  
‘Goodnight, Uncle Kai,’ Maeve says.  
‘Goodbye Dad,’ Rosie smiles softly. ‘Love you.’  
‘More than the world,’ he whispers as she shuts the door, firmly, behind her.  
‘Thought I was more than the world?’ I ask as I sit beside him putting my arm around his shoulders.  
‘You’re the sky, the sun and the stars as well,’ he reminds me.  
I look into his tired eyes, my arm feeling his bones far too close to the surface of his skin and the exhaustion radiating from him.   
Comprehension hits me with all the force of a Saxon spear to the gut.  
‘Oh, my Kai! Why didn’t you tell me?’  
He rests his forehead against mine and sighs.  
‘Thought I was just feeling my age,’ he confesses.   
I know he is far older than our father, Llud, when he went to the warrior’s hall.  
‘Maeve couldn’t cure this cough. Then my clothes became too big but I was still eating well.’  
I kiss him and let him lean on me.  
‘Maeve knows?’ I ask gently.  
He nods.   
‘I think I’ve known, inside, for a little while but she told me when I coughed so much I vomited blood after I returned home last sevenday.’  
‘What do you need from me?’ I ask, my innate practicality asserting itself.  
‘Just talk to me, let me hear your voice.’  
‘You’re not sick of the sound of that, yet?’  
‘Never!’ he replies stoutly, pushing himself to his feet with the aid of his stick.  
I lay back on the bed my arms behind my head and watch his preparations with interest. He pushes the pot on the hearth out of the way of the heat then adds more wood to the fire.   
So, the warm water is for washing not for any strange herbal tisanes, this evening.  
After his ablutions he opens up the bag and removes three pots. One, I know by the scent, contains good, rich wine. He pours a little of the wine into one of the cups on the table, the one his daughter had almost flung at his grey head. The second, I know, contains the poppy juice which my Maeve had wanted him to drink from, deeply. The other scent in the third pot I don’t recognise.  
He turns to look at my face.  
‘The poppy juice helps with cough and the wasting sickness,’ he explains, softly.  
Poppy juice was a prized rarity when we were young warriors. Now it is easier to get hold of; traders bring it from all over the known world. Mark’s grandsons and great-grandsons also grow it in the balmy kingdom of Cornwall and trade it to the healers in the Celtic alliance.  
‘And the other pot?’  
‘Wine increases the effect of the poppy juice and the other pot is hemlock.’  
‘Just to make sure?’ I ask, facetiously.  
He nods.  
I can understand the desire. I would want to be deep in a drugged sleep too, by the time my lungs refused to work and I began to suffocate from the effects of hemlock.  
‘And my Maeve wants you to do this in the longhouse surrounded by our children?’  
He nods, pulling the stopper from the smaller pot and emptying the contents into the cup, followed by all of the poppy juice then filling it to the brim with the wine.  
‘And I want to do this hearing your voice not the sound our children, sobbing.’  
I can’t say I disagree with him.  
‘Who have you trained up in your place?’ I ask, interested.  
‘What training?’ he flings back at me. ‘It just happened, I didn’t train for this! I don’t even know how it happened!’  
I smirk as I reply,  
‘Of course you trained. A lifetime of listening to your second father and your little brother’s wise counsel!’  
He grunts, his lips turning up in mirth.  
‘Almost everyone in the village are now believers of the one Christ and there are three priests in easy riding distance not to mention Abbott Wenlock, who gives the sacraments to the people in the village.   
‘Seeing and having discourse with spirits is frowned upon by the new priests,’ he informs me, with an easy grin, before drinking the contents of the cup in several deep swallows.  
He returns to our bed flowing into my arms, the place he belongs.  
‘The book of the one Christ doesn’t condemn those with the gift of seeing spirits,’ I say, taking his head on my chest and making him comfortable.  
‘Things change, my love,’ I hear him mumble, wriggling and fidgeting until his various old battle wounds and ancient bones are silenced enough to let him sleep his way to me, forever.  
My Kai has never been highly fleshed but now that his whole body rests against mine I can feel he is just a collection of bones held loosely together in a cloth of skin. How did I not notice this before?  
‘Rosie knows what you are going to do?’   
He nods. ‘That surprised me. I didn’t think she knew what really ailed me.’  
‘Do you think Maeve told her?’  
‘Those two could always read each other’s thoughts,’ Kai replies. ‘Rosie probably picked it out of her mind, somehow.’  
‘How long has my Maeve known?’ I ask, stroking my Kai’s back and kissing his beloved face.   
His body was relaxing against me, the pain which had worn furrows between his brows and along his forehead fading.  
‘I think she’s known for almost a season. She refused to draw your dagger across my throat when I asked her.’  
‘My heart, I would have struggled to do that too,’ I told him softly.  
‘You would have seen me in such pain?’ he whispers.  
I shake my head.  
‘Never! I would have gladly taken your pain onto me, rather than take your life but if that was the only choice, I would have made it quick and painless. But, by the one Christ, It would have ripped my heart and soul from me to do it.’  
His eyes are fluttering shut but he still smiles at me.  
‘I hope we’re together,’ he sighs. ‘I don’t believe in your one Christ but his priests tell me you have earned your place in his paradise.’  
I huff a soft laugh. ‘How could it be any kind of paradise without you?’ I ask.  
After a few minutes his drug addled eyes struggle open and widen in comprehension.  
‘You’ve been waiting for me, all these years?’  
‘I would happily wait an eternity for the other half of my soul, my Kai.’  
I hold him and stroke his thin grey hair as his extremities go numb and stop working, his eyes fall closed and his breathing softens, slows then stops.  
I roll off our bed being careful not to disturb his peaceful pose. Gently I fold the thick blanket over him, straighten his hair and kiss his cooling forehead.  
‘You could give me a hand,’ I say, as I smooth out the blanket around his shoulders and straighten the other side of the bed to remove the imprint of my body.  
‘I was enjoying the view,’ his voice replies from his seat at the table.   
He is leaning on one hand and smiling his wide, white smile at me. His hair is golden again and his skin taut and young, deep brown eyes, without the milky blue rim of age, smile back at me.  
I smile at my beloved. How long I’ve waited for this!  
He makes his way to me and winds his arms around my shoulders, his body pressed against my back, resting the side of his face against the side of mine.  
Together we look at his worldly body, still and cooling.  
‘I look so old! he says wonderingly.  
‘You are old,’ I reply, mercilessly.  
He nips my ear lobe then soothes the bite with his lips.  
‘You should be giving me the honour and reverence due to an elder and seer,’ he scolds, not moving away from me at all.  
We rest our heads against each other again and laugh.  
‘How long before the children arrive with a cart to drag my old bag of bones back to the village, do you think?’ he asks.  
Well, let’s see, I would say Theo and Kaitlin already knew your intentions...’  
He raises his eyebrows. ‘I did wonder why I was honoured by our King and Queen staying with me most of yesterday, plying me with wine and sweetmeats.’  
I laugh out loud. ‘Under no circumstances can I hear you calling my eldest daughter and her husband, your son, your majesties.’  
‘They would have collapsed in shock,’ Kai freely admits.  
‘The wine is from them?’  
‘It certainly is. Where did you think a miserable old man like me could get hold of wine like that?’  
I dig him in the ribs as I say,   
I did wonder where you got hold of that vintage. A very nice send-off.’  
‘Indeed!’  
‘Now, where was I?’  
‘Giving me your considered opinion on when the whole family will be here to collect my sorry corpse.’  
‘Ah, yes. Shannyn and Ivy will talk Rosie out of coming straight back here with the cart, Maeve will agree with them so all three will be complicit in feeding her a nice hot mug of tisane with a little something in it so she will sleep then Kaitlin will join them and they will speak of their revered fathers...’ his voice rises to an unmanly squeak as I tickle his ribs.  
‘The girls will reminisce about how much their sainted mothers had to put up with, the boys will drink together and swap stories of Rowena’s daring and Lenni’s wisdom and at some point tomorrow evening they will remember they need to retrieve me,’ Kai finishes for me.  
‘If you already knew, why ask?’ I say, laughing.  
‘I wanted to see what fairy tale you could conjure up,’ Kai answers, honestly.  
‘How do you feel?’ I ask. I can see in his eyes that he is feeling the demand, the need, calling to him, telling him that he should be somewhere else  
I turn in his arms and look up at him, my beloved, my Kai.  
‘What is that?’ he asks. ‘Do you feel it too?’  
I nod. I can remember what it feels like from my own death but the need is stealing through my own spirit again, too.  
‘What happens now?’ he asks.  
‘Well, this is the point where I insisted I wanted to wait for you. So, I don’t know. Shall we find out together?’   
His eyes ask a question his lips are too afraid to voice. It doesn’t matter, we don’t need to speak any more, we can feel and we know what the other knows. Instantly. No need for imprecise words, or prevarications. Correct meaning and emotions are beginning to flow freely between us now.  
I kiss his lips, my own tingling as our essence; our souls are mingling together as we are being drawn in towards the calm, soft light which has gently materialised in front of us.  
‘Wither thou goest, my heart, I will go, always and forever,’ are the last words I ever speak to my Kai.   
The uninhibited expressions, spirit speak and unadulterated emotions after would singe your eyebrows!


End file.
